Looking where the flames used to be I could still feel something, so going on a hunch I used the temperature reader gun on the space above the blade, and what I saw was amazing. It was like there was a cloud of heat in the air above the blade just sitting stationary. When I looked through the area I could even see the distortion of light rays as whatever was between me and the cloud was having its image stretched and retracted around, like when looking at black top on a sweltering day. The distortions only helped to solidify that the air was extremely hot, and for some reason stationary.


    Going back to what I had felt shortly before the flames disappeared, I tried to focus on the feeling within the flames. I could now feel this same sensation in front of me now, except it was much easier to feel this time, like I didn’t need to search for it. I once again tried pulling at the feeling and watched as the heated air in front of me began to move slightly, so I focused on the heat and began to try and move it towards my knife. I felt it easily move how I wanted now, and focused it near the back of the knife. It heated up again but it was seemingly the same as before with the heat within the blade dissipating near the cutting edge. Out of desperation I focused the heat into a smaller space and pushed it against the back of the blade again.


    As I was pushing on the blade with the heat I had something odd happen. The heat suddenly traveled directly into the blade and stayed there. I could feel the heat the same as before, but now it was within the blade. It moved around quite a bit slower now as I tried to move the heat within the blade, but I could still control it and feel it all the same. Having an idea I uniformly spread out the heat throughout the blade and evenly heated it from the inside. The results spoke for themselves, as the whole blade began to glow red and smoke began to profusely spew out of the cut the knife was making.


    In only a couple seconds the knife once again started cutting straight through the log at a rate of an inch every 3 seconds. It was having a lot of resistance from the log, but what was I to expect? It was a piece of wood so being able to move as fast as I did was amazing. I eventually cut through the whole log, but not without some problems. The knife I made was slightly warped and bent along the spine of the knife. I quickly took it to my work station and was able to salvage the blade itself, but it showed me that although it was possible to heat up and use a material, it would cause an increased rate of wear and tear.


    Thanks to the test I tried to do I now knew I could not only move and control flames, but heat as well. I wasn’t controlling the flames as I did before, as there was no combustion, but instead I was able to create and control the movement of the heat I had taken from the flames. With what happened my head was swimming with ideas of how I could change my control of flames and heat. I could experiment with a whole new aspect of my ability, which was more exciting than anything I had done for a long time. Some things that came to mind was to manually heat things up by creating heat, like I could do with flames, except it would be more controlled and less flashy. But it would require practice again to be able to learn to sufficiently control heat, just like I had to do with flames. There was a lot to do, and luckily I would have a lot of time to experiment with different ideas.


    After I finished fixing the blade, I still felt really good and decided to just practice with my flames. I did some basic exercises with my flames, spreading them out to their maximum distance, as well as compressing them and other things. It was a good change to just do my exercises as they were a relative part of my routine that felt normal. I was rather surprised with how I felt controlling my flames though, as they seemed much easier to control as well as less draining. I should probably be having a headache by now with how much I have used my flames today, but I seem completely fine. Overall I feel great and don’t really want to stop, so I decided to test an old technique I tried a long time ago.


    I immediately went to a secluded clearing as I needed space for what I wanted to do. Once there I created flames in a large circular area centered around myself. Following this I tried to make the flames more intense and hot until I felt myself unable to make it any hotter. Finally getting to the fun part I began to try and compress the flames into an orb in front of me. It was very resistant to compressing into a ball, but I felt like I could do it this time with my newfound control. I continued to strain as I felt the flames slowly drain into this small ball which was becoming brighter and brighter by the second. After roughly a minute of straining the flames all around me had finally been compressed into this small ball.


    In the end it was roughly the size of a softball, but it felt so much more dangerous than anything else I have done before. I could feel it lightly vibrating between my hands as I struggled to keep it controlled. I had a feeling that the longer I tried to control the ball the harder it would get, and who knows what could happen if I lost control of it. I decided to do a quick test by walking up to a tree and pushing the orb towards the tree. The tree combusted into flames when the orb came within a foot of it, and as I pushed the orb forward it slid right through the center of the tree with no resistance to be found. Now there was a large tree on fire with a large hole bored right through its center. I could see that the tree could cause quite the forest fire so after I was done I immediately willed the flames on and around the tree to be extinguished, all the time while also keeping some concentration on ball to keep it controlled.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Feeling that I had done enough practicing today I turned my attention towards the ball as I tried to figure out what to do with it. It was radiating a bright yellow, almost white, light and there was a constant stream of air all around the ball as it no doubt needed a great deal of air for fuel. As I contemplated what I could do with it I suddenly heard a large crack and squeaking behind me. Turning around I was face to face with a grey squirrel looking at me from the side of a tree. Looking at it I felt that there was enough damage done today and I tried to slowly will the intense ball of fire to dissipate. The release of the fire was much easier than creating it and was done very quickly.


    I then sat myself down to rest on a nearby stump, slowly breathing with my eyes closed taking in the sounds of nature. As I was resting focusing on my senses I began to feel something beyond my normal senses, like a tug at the back of my mind. It was very annoying at first like an itch that needed to be scratched, but slowly began to fade. As it began to fade I could only wonder what it meant. I decided to leave it for another day, too exhausted to try and focus on the strange feeling. Exhausted I hoisted myself up and walked back to my house to try and relax for a few hours. In all actuality I ended up passing out after an hour on the couch and woke up the next morning at 10 AM, not realizing just how draining what I did was.


    I immediately went back to my workshop to check on my knives and make sure that there weren’t any final touches that needed to be taken care of before sending them to my buyers. I then went ahead and packaged my commissions that were finished and put them into the back of my truck. Although I normally don’t like to drive into town I need to go to ship my packages personally, plus I can use this as a trip to go shopping and get anything I need, so after packing everything up I headed into town.


    The first thing I did was head to the Postal Service Building and send my packages to my suppliers. After that I went ahead and decided to do some grocery shopping and then decided to take some time for myself and head to the local bar. Some people would think that an introvert like myself would have no reason to go to a place like the bar, and normally you would be right. Unfortunately, even a person such as myself needs to have some human contact every once in a while or else even the most stable person will go crazy.


    Entering the bar, I sat down at one of the stools and ordered a couple of beers and watched the football game they had on. Personally, I thought almost all sports are fun to watch but playing was another thing entirely. Of course, hockey had a special place in my heart living in a place where we had natural ice rinks a good part of the year. Watching the football game I couldn’t tell who was playing and I didn’t care really, I was more focused on the brunette who had been watching me since I entered the bar. Normally I would like the attention from someone of the opposite gender, but she was being excessively strange about it. She would only glance at me quickly and go back to what she was doing like it never happened.


    The only reason I noticed was because she was someone I had never seen before in town, and living in a small town like I was everybody knew each other, myself included despite how little I came into town. I quickly decided I didn’t like the attention and decided to head home after paying up my tab. Walking out of the bar I got in my car and started driving home only to feel like I was being watched again. I looked around as I was driving and quickly put to rest my thoughts that I was being followed as no one was even remotely in sight. Feeling like I was completely out of sorts I decided I just wanted to go home and try to forget all my problems. There were way too many new and strange things happening in one day.


    Parking my car I went inside and lied down on my couch and put on the game again. I may not care much about the game but I definitely don’t like to stop something after I’ve started. I sat down and began to watch the game when I started to get a strange feeling again like I had yesterday. I decided to follow that feeling this time and I began by closing my eyes and trying to focus inward on that feeling. The only problem was the more I focused on the feeling this time the more it felt like it was slipping away from me. I began to wonder what to do as nothing I tried was working, I could only keep trying different methods to find out what this feeling was. As I began to think of other solutions I decided to stop focusing inwards and think a bit more on what I knew. I knew this strange feeling would possibly have to do with my powers since I only began to have this sensation when I made the breakthrough with my powers being able to manipulate heat and not just fire. I couldn’t help but think it would have to do with heat but I couldn’t figure out what. I could manipulate the heat and insert it into objects as I felt the heat move. And then it hit me, the feeling of the heat!